June 07, 2014

Psi Encyclopedias

I’ve been corresponding with Patricia Pearson, author of Opening Heaven’s Door which I reviewed here recently. She says she did a long radio interview and afterwards ‘a smart woman who'd had an NDE in 1952 listened to it, and remarked: "I can't believe the interviewer asked you the same questions they asked me in 1980!” ’

It’s the big anomaly. We think of our society as being forward-looking, hungry for scientific knowledge. Yet on these matters we seem to glory in our ignorance. Of course we can’t say for certain what goes on with near-death visions, apparitions, telepathic experiences, and all the rest. But after decades of serious research we do know something about these things. So it’s odd that media commentators, and the sceptics they invite onto their shows, seem mostly unaware of the work done by scientific researchers.

I wrote Randi’s Prize with the idea of informing an agnostic audience about this work and explaining the arguments. Against the odds I hoped the book might perhaps reach some opinion-makers in the media. But I knew from my own experience that you don’t gain full understanding about anything from reading a single book – you have to study it in depth in order to master it. So I planned also to create a companion website where readers could follow up some of the discussions with more information, and perhaps read some of the original reports.

Alas, that turned out to be beyond my capabilities. I did actually set up the site and uploaded some links and material. But then I got behind with my professional work, so I had to abandon it (the little content I put together is here on the right).

Then last year two rather interesting things happened. The first started when a reader sent me a link to a site called Guerrilla Skepticism, a group of hyper-sceptics who edit Wikipedia, ostensible to improve the profiles of sceptic spokespeople and give them more prominence. But as we know, a lot of this ‘improving’ is also targeted at pages about paranormal experiences and psi-research, to the extent that they are mostly now misleading, if not barbarously offensive.

I wrote about this and it led to a bit of discussion. One view was that any attempt to tangle with hostile editors on Wikipedia was pointless. It’s far too difficult, and anyway, sensible people don’t bother with Wikipedia because they know how unreliable it is.

I don’t agree with the last part. I use Wikipedia all the time for my journalistic work, and have found it invaluable for getting a basic understanding of country politics and economics, for instance. It won’t necessarily occur to most people that there are problems with the pages on scientific issues like psi, unless they come with some prior knowledge. So they will assume that the sceptical comment is more informed than it actually is.

Another view was that something should be done about it. At this time Rupert Sheldrake was in fighting mood, having just been caught up in the controversy over his TED talk, and announced his intention to take up the challenge on Wikipedia. We talked about this together, and I had some notion of trying to clean up some of the parapsychology pages. But then sceptics made the first move by attacking Rupert’s own Wikipedia page, where they deleted anything about his scientific standing and credentials, and did whatever they could to weaken the credibility of his research.

A battle ensued over the summer months, in which editors sympathetic to Rupert Sheldrake and his work would try to revert the hostile edits, only to have their changes instantly undone. The justification was always that Wikipedia should never give undue prominence to ‘fringe’ beliefs. Since many of the site’s supposedly neutral arbitrators, and its founder Jimmy Wales, are themselves unsympathetic, it was difficult to make headway. A Sheldrake sympathiser who seemed to be winning the argument would simply be banned for allegedly having broken some rule or other. (Craig Weiler has graphically described all this in his book Psi Wars.)

It was dispiriting to watch, but I had enormous admiration for the people who patiently keep up the fight in the face of thuggish provocation. It’s thanks to them that Sheldrake’s and a few other pages maintain some semblance of balance. Frankly that sort of thing is beyond me. It’s possible that in the long run that the way Wikipedia is run will change, allowing serious psi-research to be fairly represented. But I can’t see that happening soon, and every day that goes by quite possibly hundreds more people around the world are effectively absorbing falsehoods about the true nature of psi experiences.

There was also some talk of creating a rival resource to Wikipedia. That would have been my preference, but having already tried and failed to do something of the kind on my own I knew what a huge undertaking it would be.

That brings me to the second curious event of last year. In February I learned that I had been appointed to the governing council of the Society for Psychical Research, which has an office and library in Kensington in central London. I’ve been a member for years, and occasionally give lectures and write book reviews for its journal, but hadn’t had much involvement with its affairs. So it was a surprise to discover, when I attended my first meeting, that a substantial bequest had been donated by a deceased member for the purpose of publicising psi-research, and that after years of keen expectation the money was now sitting in the bank waiting to be disbursed.

The legacy came from Nigel Buckmaster, who had experienced a powerful mystical vision following the death of his mother in 1966; the following day he learned that his sister had experienced the same thing, in which she also received a communication that was meaningful to them both. Buckmaster contacted the SPR, who got someone to write it up (I posted the report here a couple of weeks ago.) He also started to study the literature of psi-research, and felt – exactly as I did, when I first started reading it – that it deserved to be better known. So he decided to will the proceeds of his house to the SPR for the purpose of publishing a book that would analyse some of the best cases of psi and survival.

In the years preceding his decease the idea was developed into a scheme to create a powerful online database of such cases. The aim was to help integrate psi-research into that general area of mainstream science that addresses anomalies in all kinds of fields. But at the February meeting disagreements emerged about the costs involved, and shortly afterwards the project was abandoned.

The council then returned to the idea of publishing a book, as Buckmaster originally envisaged. But there are already many books on survival phenomena, and a single book would hardly do justice the size of the bequest. So it was eventually decided, among other things, to expand Buckmaster’s original concept and create a free online encyclopedia of psi-research. Earlier this year I applied for the job of editing it and was accepted.

Thinking about it now, I realise it might after all have been possible to create something of the kind on a purely voluntary basis. It’s a question of going to researchers and writers and asking them to contribute an article on their subject of expertise. Given the Wikipedia problem everyone sees the urgency of that, and naturally the idea has occurred to other people. There are plans to add parapsychology content to Citizendium (a baby rival to Wikipedia which presumably will grow up to be better behaved), and also to Wikiversity, although it’s unclear whether that will escape the attention of hostile editors.

Perhaps more significant at present is the WISE project conceived by John Reed and backed by the Society for Scientific Exploration (WISE stands for World Institute for Scientific Exploration). This is a giant wiki-database that will see thousands of entries loaded for journals, subjects and individuals who have figured in parapsychology, psychical research, survival research, Spiritualism, ufology, alternative medicine, and related fields. It’s open to anyone to submit content, but I gather most of the effort is being directed at collecting existing material from books and journals.

The SPR resource will be smaller, with perhaps up to 1000 entries over the course of three to four years, compared with the 4000 that WISE already plans. It will also be more narrowly focused on psi-related subjects. But a lot of this material will be newly-created in-depth summaries of the main topics and case studies of key investigations and experiments, linked directly where possible to the original reports. Being funded means we have control over the way the material is shaped and presented. Hopefully we can generate enough content to launch within a year, and carry on adding new items in the following two to three years.

As far as editing and uploading material goes, clearly neither project can provide open access as Wikipedia does. In our case, articles will be vetted and improved by a fairly tight forum of active editors, and by experts in the topic.

Naturally the question arises of why there should be more than one resource of the kind. If we want to create something that rivals Wikipedia as a source that Internet users go to for information on psi-related topics, isn’t it better to cooperate rather than compete?

I’ve discussed this with WISE and we both see serious practical difficulties in joining forces, however. Certainly we won’t duplicate our efforts, but trying to combine two projects that have a very different ethos and starting points will cause delays and confusions. My own view is that having two or more alternative sources to Wikipedia could be as good as having just one, as long as readers don’t find exactly the same material on each. That said, we plan to keep an open mind about this.

These are early days, and I’m busy laying the groundwork and recruiting writers. There are many people out there whose work I admire and who I plan to contact over the coming weeks with a view to writing an article or two. (If you’re a writer or researcher with expert knowledge on a topic, and you’d like to contribute, then please get in touch with me at the address at the top of the page.)

For me personally, this is the realisation of a long-held ambition. It’s not just psi phenomena that interest me, it’s the extraordinary fact that although they’re so widely experienced – as attested in an ever-growing cascade of books and articles – they aren’t publicly acknowledged. Our society is schizoid about it, which fascinates me. I have some ideas about why it is, and I’ll have a shot at discussing them in my next book.

But if we think, as I do, that the balance is wrong, and that we can’t go on forever pretending these things are spurious, then something has to change. And that ‘something’ is surely the state of public understanding about psi research – if it’s ever to improve there must be easily accessible sources of unbiased information. I know many people believe it’s actually scientists that need to be convinced, which is true as well. But scientists too are members of the public and on this topic probably get as much of their information from Wikipedia as everyone else.

Every conversation I have about this, every radio interview discussion, every confrontation with a sceptic, quickly comes back to that one central point: the invisibility of serious psi research to the general public. As things stand, the rhetorical question, ‘But where’s the evidence?’ leaves me stumped. Oddly, it has be answered in a geographical sense. Knowledge normally resides in scientific texts and journals that can be accessed in universities and educational libraries, but because of the taboo that’s not often the case here. So where does it reside? You can join a research society like the SPR to gain access to it, but there’s a subscription fee to consider. Probably the best place to find it is in books that can be acquired from Amazon. But that’s a barrier too: most people don’t buy books to answer a casual inquiry, only to follow up something they have developed a real interest in.

That’s why a dedicated free encyclopedia of parapsychology could make a difference. Almost all of us visit Wikipedia at some time to satisfy queries – it’s the sixth most visited website and has created a certain expectation. The Google-keyword-click-Wikipedia-click routine has become a reflex, and we can exploit that newly created habit to our advantage. The channel of misinformation that Internet users are now exposed to can be diverted to a much cleaner, clearer source - detailed and unbiased articles and case studies that require minimal investment of time and none of money to read.

It won’t happen straight away, and Wikipedia is likely to retain its dominance at the top of the search results for a while yet. But these new resources will start to make inroads: over time their presence will raise the level of the public debate. For one thing, I expect to start seeing much more detailed references to the psi-research literature in articles by mainstream journalists. For many it will be a revelation. They will learn for the first time that these phenomena are not only much more widely experienced than they realised but have been extensively studied by highly credentialled scientific researchers, also that these researchers on the whole believe they can’t easily be explained by materialist science as it stands and – contrary to the story told on Wikipedia – have good arguments.

In the longer term, debunking sceptics – and the sceptical movement generally – will have to raise their game. On radio and TV, the chortling dismissals, hand waving and harrumphing won’t work as long as the interviewer can douse them with facts quickly downloaded from a reputable source. Nor will sceptics be able to rely on smug generalisations and references to a few high profile debunkings and fraudulent cases if they find themselves being instantly challenged with much stronger cases. To be effective they’re going to have to get to know something about the subject – and what a refreshing change that will be.

Beyond that, it seems natural to me that people who experience paranormal phenomena – at a relative’s deathbed, a child talking of a previous life, an apparition - should be able quickly to discover what is known about it. Yes, they can poke around on Amazon and find a book to buy, and of course there are some quite good Internet resources on topics like NDEs and past life memories. But my guess is that many don’t look – the experience just sits somewhere in the back of their mind as a curiosity, something they daren’t speak about for fear of being ridiculed and have to try to make sense of on their own (writers like Patricia Pearson and Penny Sartori who seek out experiencers hear this over and over.) It will be satisfying to know that one day soon this need can be quickly and comprehensively satisfied.

The three wise monkeys in the middle were characterized by their air of intellectual superiority and a faint whiff of myopia: the confidence of the ignorant. But until TV producers realize that Psi related phenomena carry serious scientific weight then little will change.

On the other hand, many people experience these phenomena and can therefore see beyond the blindness of such naive reporting. It's only in academic circles (and between would-be academics) that the conflict truly exists.

I'm so delighted to see this project finally coming to a head! A reputable resource, for folks ranging from everyday people to the press is desperately needed in the midst of all the cacophony (infobesity) of our era. And the SPR has an excellent reputation among those who pay attention.

I've consistently been of the opinion that, after being vetted by professional psi researchers and reasonable sceptics, all entries should be written by, or at least edited by professional journalists, writers and editors.

An important skill in the art of journalism is the ability to take a complex issue and distill the relevant data into information that is comprehensible to the reader, while maintaining enough integrity to withstand a thorough fact check. Some facts may be open to reasonable dispute, but that is usually acknowledged in the article.

It's great to see your hands assisting the steering of this project Robert. Perhaps Michael Prescott, Greg Taylor and others of that ilk could be recruited to contribute articles as well. Just a suggestion.

I wish this effort good luck, with prayers to put wind in the sails. I can't wait to see it come to fruition!

good news robert
this initiative that you describe will be a welcome resource ... and that you've agreed to work on it merits congrats and blessings.

as rabbitdawg mentions : "Some facts may be open to reasonable dispute, but that is usually acknowledged in the article."

a section in each entry outlining popular or oft quoted dismissals and then followed by reasoned reply might be scads of extra work but will prove to be invaluable in the long run (my idealism shining through)

also, with you involved we can rest easy there won't be any pulsating alien heads or radioactive crop circle logos marring the design of the site ;)

i first returned to this site because of the tasteful and sober design...something i've often repeated is sorely lacking in many paranormal sites (that are still stuck in some black and lime green nineties hell of graphic design....because, y'know, paranormal!!)

i'll also pipe in re: sceptics. some will ease into the at-first uncomfortable reality the data reveals, other newer ones will be born, tactics and focus will change over time, today homeopathy, tomorrow who knows...
the wiki entry of the site you propose will be a doozy i'm sure.

Seriously, though: It’s interesting to see the reaction of skeptics when they ARE confronted by the facts, and there’s no way out.

Remember a few months back when I posted a clear example of banker Edward Clodd (whose books are often used by skeptics as a ‘reliable’ source on Wikipedia) effectively lying about Sir Oliver Lodge to portray the latter as a woolly-headed, gullible idiot? (See the comments section of ‘There Probably is an Afterlife’ posted on December 9 last year)

Ben Steigmann used that as a counter to ‘Leon’ who was doing the usual skeptic thing on Amazon in the comments section of the reviews page for Dean Radin’s last book. You know, publishing long lists of skeptic arguments (under a series of other nom de plumes) almost as long as the book itself that, on the surface would look plausible to anyone unfamiliar with the field.

‘Leon’s’ initial response was to tell Ben that I’d probably just used a, presumably unreliable, secondary source. When I popped up and informed him that I’d used primary sources (concerning Lodge, this was a peer-refereed journal) and that I’d quoted both Clodd and Lodge verbatim in full, his response was that it didn’t count because the ‘misrepresentation’ was taken from one of Clodd’s books on evolution. Obviously it would have been an entirely different matter if Clodd had been lying (or merely disingenuously sloppy) in one of his books attacking psychical research.

Leon, at some point in a very long (and pretty tedious debate) then deleted all his contributions, but popped up as someone else, telling Ben that using counter arguments contained in book reviews from the SPR ‘Journal’ didn’t count because the SPR holds no corporate opinion.

Ridiculous though it may seem, this is the academic standard that Wikipedia seems to find acceptable.

Naturally, the SPR funded resource will be properly balanced and will not promulgate any ‘corporate opinion’. It is ironic indeed, that skeptic commentators often like to give the impression that it was skeptics who first came up with the criticisms that they level at psi researchers, and the field in general when, actually, it was usually the active members of the early SPR, men like Lodge.

It's about time that the SPR grabbed this territory (reasonable, evidence based sceptism) back from these people.

One reason why highly intelligent people (who ought to be capable of superior reasoning) are loath to accept anything that contradicts their chosen world view is because they are so very good at self-rationalization. I learnt that (although, I didn't really need to be told) from correspondence with the late psychiatrist and author Robin Skynner.

As I've said all along, direct conflict with any kind of deliberately perverse mindset is a waste of energy. Just keep the truth out there and let it find its own way. There really is nothing else of lasting value that can be achieved.

Here, here Julie, although, you’d have to choose a slightly different metaphor for the most irritating commentator on that edition of ‘The Big Questions’ that you gave a link to earlier – the unfeasibly unctuous Deborah Hyde. The insidious wave of vacuous waffle that oozed from my laptop screen (from most of the believers and skeptics, alike) proved extraordinarily effective in dousing the last remaining sparks of energy from my ‘soul’ that remained after a hard day at work last night.

The only person on the program who is currently involved in serious research germane to the discussion, the chap from the cardiac unit involved in an NDE study, was virtually ignored. And Hyde, whose scientific and clinical credentials in this area are probably zero, was allowed to get away with brushing off his comments with the ridiculous assumption, supported by no evidence at all, that someone whose brain has effectively flat-lined is capable of ascertaining what had been done with her false teeth whilst in that state.

It may well be, as the host Nicky Campbell remarked, that we have something like 100 million neurons in the human brain – to say nothing of the interconnections between them. That being the case, though, I can’t say I saw much evidence of their use on that program. What a waste of electricity!

"The insidious wave of vacuous waffle that oozed from my laptop screen (from most of the believers and skeptics, alike) proved extraordinarily effective in dousing the last remaining sparks of energy from my ‘soul’ that remained after a hard day at work last night."

It had *exactly* the same effect on me, Steve. Just listening to discussions like that are enough to make me lose the will to live. What did occur to me about Deborah Hyde was that, like so many of the hard-line sceptics, although undoubtedly good looking there was nothing in the least bit attractive about her facial expressions. That, in itself, speaks volumes to me.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I need to get my head back in the gas oven. ;)

I've changed my mind about Deborah Hyde, Julie, I don't think she is that good looking :-)
She also got the denture case totally wrong. She was parroting Gerry Woerlee's propaganda...a version of the case that never happened. The case has been examined minutely and TG the male nurse and prime witness categorically stated that it was impossible that the man could have felt his denture being removed etc. He was stone dead at the time. Not only that he described many other details including a little wash basin which was concealed behind a curtain. The only way he could have seen this would have been from a position right up in the air (as he basically said he was)...here is part of the rejoinder of R H Smit and Titus Rivas.

At arrival in the [CCU] department [the patient had] wide light-stiff pupils, signs of serious oxygen deprivation in the brain, no heart rhythm capable of maintaining the pump function, but instead ventricular fibrillation from the moment of his arrival at the hospital up to the moment of [his] arrival at the [CCU] took more than five minutes. During that period the ambulance nurse could only run beside the gurney; hence resuscitation was hardly possible. It was only attempted to try to maintain some ventilation. In the old Canisius Hospital the distance between First Aid, where patients arrived, and the CCU was considerable. One even had to take an elevator to the third floor as it was there where the CCU was located.

So, much precious time was lost to reach the CCU and next resume the resuscitation procedure. Between the lifting of the patient from the gurney onto the bed, the installation of the heart massage pump,and the factual resumption of the resuscitation, much time was lost, certainly more than a minute.

In that period no resuscitation took place and there was definnitely no blood circulation. The dentures—and I say this with strong emphasis—were removed from the mouth BEFORE the heart massage machine was switched on

So it was impossible that Mr. B would have been conscious and could physically have observed his surroundings as Woerlee alleges he [Mr. B.] had done. Besides, as far as I know nobody has ever been conscious when his pupils did not react to light. In addition, to me it seems far fetched that during the resuscitation Mr. B would have observed his surroundings in the very brief moments that I opened his eyes to check his light-stiff pupils. (TG, 2008, p. 8; italics and bracketed material added)

So, once again, it is quite clear that Woerlee’s assertion has no ground in fact. His assertion was that shortly after the patient had been brought in, the Thumper was placed on the breast of the patient and switched on, which resulted in sufficient blood flow and a restoration of consciousness to the extent that patient B “felt” how his dentures were taken out, “heard” how they were put on a wooden shelf of the crash cart, and soon afterwards “saw” his surroundings, the face of nurse TG, etc. This assertion, then, does not square with TG’s testimony. Truly, we find it somewhat strange that Woerlee either overlooked or simply ignored TG’s statements in this regard.
..................
So...Mr B the patient observed the ramshackle crash cart (it was a cobbled together kitchen trolley) the (already) pulled out wooden shelf with bottles on it, where TG put his denture. He described a mirror and a cupboard, the concealed wash basin, TG and the two other female nurses, he saw TG sitting on his chest, saw and heard the nurses express the hopelessness of the case "What are we doing here, let's stop he is a goner etc) and all this while basically dead.
This is why I get so pissed off with sceptics.

This piece from the corroboration of the denture case (Smit and Rivas etc) perhaps clarifies it even better.

The patient, B., from Ooy near the city of Nijmegen, had indeed been brought in on a cold night, more dead than alive, and had undergone the whole procedure as reported in A.A.’s interview with T.G., who
was adamant in stating that B. had not shown any sign whatsoever of
being conscious at the time. He was clinically dead, period: no
heartbeat, no breathing, no blood pressure, and ‘‘cold as ice.’’ The
ambulance personnel had tried to carry out some reanimation while
driving to the hospital, but without result. Most important, immediately
after B. entered the hospital, T.G. removed the dentures from
B.’s mouth and intubated him before starting up the entire
reanimation procedure. Therefore, as T.G. categorically stated, any
‘‘normal’’ observation by the patient of his dentures being removed from
his mouth was simply unthinkable [my italics].
In addition, the normal observation process could not have been the
basis of the patient’s detailed description of the crash cart as well as of
the entire resuscitation room. Once again, T.G. was adamant in that
regard, noting that patient B. had never before been in that hospital, let
alone in this resuscitation room, and that this particular crash cart was
absolutely unique, being a hand-made product of ramshackle quality
that had been stationed in that resuscitation room only and nowhere
else. To guess the precise nature of that cart and its contents on the
basis of auditory impressions, or through briefly opened eyes characterized
by fixed, dilated, unresponsive pupils, was impossible by all
accounts. T.G. asserted that certainly it would have been impossible for
B. to know precisely where T.G. had placed the dentures.

"I've changed my mind about Deborah Hyde, Julie, I don't think she is that good looking :-) "

LOL! I'd simply put it down to a matter of taste. :)

But while we're enjoying a spot of bitchiing, don't you think Richard Dawkins would be rather handsome were it not for the fact that his facial expressions are those of a petulant and menopausal maiden aunt? ;)

One of the few exceptions to the rule is Susan Blackmore who can be rather charming and attractive, at times. But where would her career be without her malignant scepticism? Come to think of it, even Dawkins has built his entire academic reputation on his God-bashing skills.

It seems to me that the prominent sceptics (and even the not-so-prominent, for that matter) want just that: prominence. I suspect it's a condition driven by the same impulse as the child who simply craves attention - and doesn't care over-much how that attention is expressed. I even have a giant schnauzer like that. He's called Biff and will steal and run off with anything to hand (brushes, combs, socks, tea towels) and appears to gain the utmost satisfaction from the chaos and confusion he creates. It seems that being shouted and sworn at, and having to dodge flying missiles, somehow makes him feel important. :/

Anyway, I digress. Not one of those sceptics on that dreadful Sunday morning TV programme had the foggiest idea what they were talking about. Which tells me that the programme researchers knew even less.

Surely anyone with an honest and enquiring mind will research the matter for themselves and formulate their own conclusions based on the copious amount of evidence available? And if they can't be bothered to do so then, as far as I'm concerned, they aren't worth bothering with.

I'm a lifelong horsewoman. And, on the subject of horsemanship,I think it was Alois Podhajsky who said, "I give the pupil 25% of all there is to know, and if he doesn't go and discover the rest for himself then he is not worth teaching."

I'm rather given to horsey analogies; there's one for almost every circumstance. :)

Ms Hyde is becoming a bit of a serial offender in the disingenuous misrepresentation stakes. A couple of years ago she could be found on UK national TV (‘This Morning’) engaged in a carefully worded attempt to give everyone the impression that Mary Rose Barrington of the SPR (in a report she and others compiled on the Enfield poltergeist) had concluded that the case was not genuine – all down to cheating, wishful thinking, blah di blah di blah). She had the nerve to do this in the presence of Guy Lyon Playfair (one of the two central SPR investigators) and Janet, who was the main ‘focus’ of the case.

I was watching and was astounded to hear that because, having read the report myself in the SPR Library many years ago, I was sure that Mary Rose et al. had reached the opposite conclusion i.e. that although there was some evidence of cheating on the part of the children (which Guy and Maurice Gross reported themselves), Enfield did show challenging evidence of genuine activity.

Needless to say, Mary Rose Barrington (a former barrister) had something to say about this. She demanded, and was given, the right to reply in 'The Skeptic', of which Hyde is the Editor.

Julie, in many ways Dawkins seems to model himself on Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 - 1895) who was known as 'Darwin's Bulldog'. Huxley, and others like him, did much to set the tone of modern, militant 'skepticism' or 'scientism'.

So, for quite a long time now, I've referred to Dawkins as 'Darwin's Yorkie'. A bit daft, I know, but it's those eyebrows that give him away!

"So, for quite a long time now, I've referred to Dawkins as 'Darwin's Yorkie'. A bit daft, I know, but it's those eyebrows that give him away!"

LOL! Even dafter is the fact that Darwin wasn't half as obsessive about his theory as many of its adherents. 'Tis a strange trait of human nature that we tend to make up our minds on any issue then adopt the evidence that fits our conclusions. But for sceptics it's a matter of ignoring and/or distorting *all* the evidence: a case of, "Pah! I spit in the face of evidence for NDEs and the afterlife!"

One issue I haven't seen addressed yet is a provocative dilemma that will ultimately present itself - where do the editors draw the line on the paranormal subjects and issues covered? Or is it all wide open?
OBE's, Reincarnation, NDE's, energy healing and other "mainstream" categories are obvious entries, but what about UFO's? Bigfoot? The Law of Attraction and all sorts of other New Age propositions?

Where does one draw the boggle threshold line? That enchanted boundary is such a personal and slippery thing.

A great psi encyclopedia of the past, was the Unexplained magazine series subtitled 'Mysteries of Mind, Space, and Time' that ran from 1980 to 1983. It was republished in multiple book form by Orbis (each book revolving around different themes - ufology, hauntings, parapsychology etc.). This was a high-quality psi and Fortean encyclopedia, its senior editor was Peter Brookesmith and it covered everything and steered the middle-ground avoiding New-Age gullibility on the one hand and pseudo-skepticism on the other (it had good skeptical articles). Contributions from the Who's Who in psi research and Forteana from the 1970s and 80s.

Those books (never mind the single mags) have become more difficult to get hold of now, as you would expect as time passes. Occasionally you find some of the books and even the mags from this series in good second hand bookstores, but you need to be lucky. Yes I know there is Amazon now. It would be nice if that whole series could be made available online (it isn't online, not legally and not illegally for that matter. At least as far as I have been able to discover. A few articles yes, but just a few, and not legitimately).

Maybe somebody with clout could make inquiries of Orbis (is it still extant? Or has it been taken over by another publisher?), even of Brookesmith or other editors who worked on that series and are still alive; and see what can be done there... It really is such a valuable resource. I don't know who has the copyright with that series, I assume Orbis.

If you know that series (and what kind of self-respecting Fortean doesn't?), you will know that to have that series online, would be a big boon.

I've still got some of the mag's. I used to buy them in Selfridges in Oxford to stave off boredom as an 18 year old - while working nightshifts at Oxfordshire County Council Computer Department. There were a lot of good books out around then by some of the contributers as well - the likes of Playfair, Inglis and Wilson, who were all SPR stallwarts.

Those publications were, pretty much, responsible for getting me interested in this field and informed my approach from the start. Very influential indeed.

TV documentaries tended to be a lot more balanced and informed then too. I remember a Horizon about psi research from the early 80’s that was particularly good. It seems to me, looking back, that the difference was that the media tended to involve academic researchers more then – rather than merely filter psi claims through the distorting lens of media scepticism, or leave the claims largely unchallenged.

I think that the rise of lazy journalism in this area has a lot to answer for – perhaps even more so than the increased influence of skeptics on the media.

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not supposed to be impressed by psychic research, get
together and such matters are mentioned, and all feel
that they are in safe and sane company, usually from a
third to a half of them begin to relate exceptions. That
is to say, each opens a little residual closet and takes
out some incident which happened to them or to some
member of their family, or to some friend whom they
trust and which they think odd and extremely puzzling.’
Walter Prince, psychic researcher.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke

‘Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest
manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian
conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down
before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every
preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to
whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.’
Thomas Henry Huxley

We can always immunize a theory against refutation. There are many such immunizing tactics; and if nothing better occurs to us, we can always deny the objectivity – or even the existence – of the refuting observation. Those intellectuals who are more interested in being right than in learning something interesting but unexpected are by no means rare exceptions. Karl Popper, on the defenders of materialism.

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative. Arthur C. Clarke.